Invites lost in the mail?

PrincessJas · September 2012

Hi ladies - I have a question regarding guest and host etiquette when invitations get lost in the mail. I will be attending my 4th wedding in 2 years, and of those, for 2 we never say the invitations. The first one wasn't an issue - I was a bridesmaid, so I was already in close contact with the bride, but I was very confused up until the rehearsal dinner why I hadn't received an invitation - it turns out that about 1/2 their invites got lost in the mail! The second one is in 3 weeks in San Diego (so long distance for my BF and me). We were verbally invited back in May, but the paper invitation never came! I chalked it up to the groom forgetting it in his car and never sending it, but it turns out that invitation was lost as well!

So, I have 3 questions:

(1) How frequently do wedding invites get lost in the mail? I almost never have regular mail lost, but is it common for wedding invitations, for some reason?

(2) What is the proper etiquette for the guest in the case that they have been informed verbally that they were invited, but never see the invitation? I think I may have committed an etiquette no-no by pressuring my BF to verify with the groom that we were or were not invited, because it could have introduced a very awkward situation if we weren't actually invited (plans change between May and October, that's understandable).

(3) Is there any way for the bride and groom to make sure their invitations all make it to the right place? I was surprised no one came hunting us down for an RSVP when we never said anything - that said, most of their guests are probably from San Diego, so maybe the RSVP date hasn't come yet...

What are your thoughts?

Calypso1977 · September 2012

im guessing with the san diego invite, tehy found they couldnt accomodate you in the guest list even tho they verbally invited you back in may. they probably assumed you would have forgotten the verbal convo. i am guessing he told you it got lost to avoid having to tell you that you were never invited to begin with.

TurtlesAllTheWayDown · September 2012

If you are told you are being invited by the host, you are invited, full stop. So don't worry about the awkwardness of "maybe we weren't invited." You WERE, so you're right, you should get an invitation.

We once didn't get an invitation, and then never got thank you notes from those people for wedding or baby gifts. I'd like to think it was just because they didn't have our correct address. And that was an OOT wedding.

We had 2 invitations get returned to us out of about 70. And my mom's RSVP got lost in the mail.

Meegles4 · September 2012

As far as I know, in the 100ish invitations we sent out, none were lost. We had a couple get torn up, and one even burned half off due to it getting caught up in some postal machine...but it still got delivered somehow.

Frankly, if you're verbally invited, I wouldn't plan on going unless you get a call from the B or G asking if you're attending. Typically the bride or groom will call anyone who they haven't received the RSVP card from. So, in theory, if your invitation was lost in the mail, you never got an RSVP card and thus never sent it in, and that would trigger someone to call you and say "hey, why haven't you RSVP'ed? Let me know if you are coming because I need a final head count?" and you could then say "sorry, I never received the invitation."

I think it's weird to verbally invite someone and not follow up with an invitation. I also think it's weird that many invitations got lost in the mail. Even if the bride didn't put enough postage on it, it would just get returned to her as undeliverable and she could re-send.

unchatenfrance · September 2012

If you never received a paper invitation and nobody called you after the RSVP deadline to ask if you're coming or not, I would bet that the couple never actually mailed you a paper invitation as they had no intention of sending you one despite the verbal invite. If I were in your situtation I would totally call them to inquire.

[Deleted User] · September 2012

So far, out of the roughly 50 invites we sent out...only one person that we checked with didn't receive theirs...and that one seems sketchy to me. We just resent her a new one.

PrincessJas · September 2012

Hi ladies - Thanks for the input. I guess somehow I'm just bad luck with invitations

I did figure that if we were invited, whenever they needed the head count, they would call and ask, but I had no idea when that would be (2 or 3 weeks out, I guess, is standard? We're at the 3 week mark today). Being from OOT, though, plane tickets only get more expensive by the day, and I had multiple other people trying to plan things with me that weekend, and I was having to put them on indefinite hold.

Calypso, that is exactly what I'm afraid of, and now I feel guitly

bridalmarch · September 2012

I got a STD from a high school friend (I need a second to giggle at the sentence) along with a card about hotel rooms. The wedding was a 4-5 hr drive so we booked our room and found an overnight sitter for our daughter.

We never got an invite. I ended up having to ask him what the deal was because we didn't want to lose the deposit on the room. He said my invite got lost and we ended up attending the wedding. Whether or not that was true or we were cut from the list after the fact is still sort of up for debate, but meh.

PrincessJas · September 2012

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_invites-lost-in-the-mail?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:9Discussion:fb49744c-c98e-4743-9d0e-bde463a10936Post:7c556789-3fb4-4d56-ba47-4d25e91c15e6">Re: Invites lost in the mail?</a>:
[QUOTE]About a half a dozen of our 120 or so invites were lost. I figured it out when I emailed people reminding them that our hotel black was closing soon, and a bunch of people emailed back to say they had no clue what I was talking about. <strong>I wish they had called and asked about their invites sooner, since most of them knew we intended to invite them.</strong>
Posted by Liatris2010[/QUOTE]

<div>Based on my experiences, now, I'm contemplating just calling each person invited about 3 weeks after invitations go out, not to ask about RSVP or anything, but just to make sure they got the invite (so that I can re-send if they didn't). Would this be out of line?</div>

Kate61487 · September 2012

I think maybe 4 of our 200 invitations got lost. And actually they didn't get lost - all but one eventually made it back to me; the last I assume was delivered, but turns out we had the wrong address.

@PrincessJas - I would definitely NOT go to the trouble of calling everyone. After the RSVP date passes call anyone who didn't respond; if any of your invites didn't make it they'll tell you then.

As for more wedding invites getting lost more often than other mail - I'd expect that's true. Invitations are more likely to be thicker envelopes that may have some trouble in the sorting machines. Square ones can't go through the machines at all. I'd imagine they have trouble more often than a business envelope or standard thin card.

phfiely · September 2012

I don't really buy the "it got lost in the mail" thing. I think it's really rare I'd have to look up statistics of courseI think it's usually just what people say when they forget to send something. Out of all our invitations, only 3 were returned due to guests moving, so we resent another and none were lost. No RSVPs have been lost either. I agree with the poster above who said that I'd you didn't get an invite AND you didn't get a call asking about your RSVP that the couple must have not had you on the final guest list ?. Unless the couple just didn't call guests who didn't RSVP. Idk what the correct etiquette is, but I probably wouldn't call and inquire about attending bc I'd feel like I wasn't invited although you were verbally invited...

TurtlesAllTheWayDown · September 2012

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_invites-lost-in-the-mail?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:9Discussion:fb49744c-c98e-4743-9d0e-bde463a10936Post:2356e286-986d-4570-bdcb-87db0107aba6">Re: Invites lost in the mail?</a>:
[QUOTE]In Response to Re: Invites lost in the mail? : Based on my experiences, now, I'm contemplating just calling each person invited about 3 weeks after invitations go out, not to ask about RSVP or anything, but just to make sure they got the invite (so that I can re-send if they didn't). Would this be out of line?
Posted by PrincessJas[/QUOTE]

Given the small percentage of people who might not get an invitation, I think it's overkill.

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